Described below is a mobile energy carrier and energy store, by which energy can be transported in the form of material from zones distributed widely throughout the world, for example with a large amount of solar energy, wind energy or other CO2 neutral energy, such as the equator, to zones with a high energy demand, for example Europe.
It is a general problem that energy is scarce and expensive, the worldwide oil reserves are limited, and the CO2 emission from energy use must be controlled.
There is therefore always a requirement to create energy carriers which provide useable energy carriers, which are as CO2 neutral as possible, in the industrial zones.
Some efforts have already been made to make the energy stored in naturally occurring rocks or sand usable beyond national boundaries. Particularly in conjunction with silicon extraction, trials have already been carried out to obtain energy from quartz or sand. This is done using compounds which are analogous to hydrocarbons and which have to be obtained chemically via a number of energy-intensive intermediate steps.
However, until now, this has always failed because of the negative energy balance which results when all the factors are considered, such as release of the energy contained therein, transport, etc.